U.S. Top Imports from Largest Trade Partners

Discussions of policy have ramped up in economic and finance circles as a new administration has begun in the United States. While taxes and regulatory regime are often the focus of these conversations at the beginning of a new presidency, trade deals and the specter of tariffs are heavy on the minds of economists and investors. GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has suggested Congressional pushback against efforts to fund new projects with tariffs on imports, calling tariffs a “huge barrier to economic growth.”1

We decided to look at the hard data from the US Census Bureau on international trade to find the top 5 imports that would be affected from our largest trade partners- China, Mexico, Canada, Japan, Germany, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and France. 2 Whereas Senator Graham (likely for satirical effect) suggested that agricultural and beverage products would be especially impacted, we found that vehicles, pharmaceuticals, cell phones & household goods, computers, and US Goods that are reimported to the US were commonly the products to be most impacted across the board.